Istwa Nou

Through February 1990 the Haitian opposition assembled a common front. Eleven parties signed a declaration calling on General Prosper Avril to resign, among the signatories Marc Bazin, Louis Roy, Hubert de Ronceray, Rene Theodore, Sylvio Claude and the priest Antoine Adrien. Shops shut, schools closed and crowds filled the streets. An eleven year old girl was killed by a stray bullet while she sat studying. The American ambassador, Alvin Adams, then asked Avril to meet him. Adams reminded the general of Richard Nixon's resignation and told him his accounts in United States banks could be frozen. Avril agreed to go. At twenty minutes to three on the afternoon of Saturday 10 March 1990 he was driven to his house in Petionville, having issued no public statement. Twenty minutes later the acting army chief of staff, General Herard Abraham, appeared on television to announce the fifth change of government in four years. The army would hold power for seventy two hours while a Supreme Court judge was found to serve as interim president.

The 1987 constitution sent the presidency to a member of the Cour de Cassation, and the judge next in line, Gilbert Austin, was thought too close to the departing general to be able to govern. Austin removed himself. The post went instead to Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, at forty six the youngest judge on the court, appointed to it by a liberal justice minister during the years of the military council. Prosper Avril had agreed to leave office while refusing to leave the country, where he would have served as a rallying point for the right. American pressure settled that too, and on Monday at dawn a United States Air Force plane carried him and his family to Florida. Pascal-Trouillot was sworn in on 13 March 1990 as the first woman to head the Haitian state. General Herard Abraham handed her the blue and red sash and said that the army awaited her orders. In a white linen suit she told a cheering crowd that she wanted nothing except to serve the country. Elections were set for December.